He smiled, relieved that she was now out of the carrier at least. He sat down on the floor and watched her eat, still speaking softly to her. She seemed to be responding to his words and he thought that maybe she was starting to relax a bit.

While he waited, he decided he might as well grab a snack himself since between this and Shelley’s appearance earlier, he hadn’t had time to pick up food on his way to the shelter.

That day of the PR thing, once Hannah left, he’d gone back and asked the manager about adopting the stray. The guy, Hank, hadn’t had a problem with it, but she’d needed more shots, a little more time to heal and her fur to grow back a bit before she could leave. So Ward had picked her up earlier.

‘Seems like that old wives tale about calico being lucky is true,’ the shelter manager commented, following up with a nature lesson about how the cat’s tri-colour black, white and ginger colouring happened purely by chance. Ward didn’t know anything about that; he’d just felt the need to help the wretched thing.

Now, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the leftover pretzel piece he’d had in the car on the way. Almost as soon as she spied the snack, the cat’s eyes lit up. She immediately stopped eating the food and slowly inched closer to him, her tail twitching in anticipation.

‘Seriously?’ He laid down a piece and she immediately shot out a paw and whipped it back to her. Then began to demolish it, her eyes still glued to him in warning.

‘Well, what do you know?’ Ward laughed softly, amazed at how well the name suited, given her colouring. ‘Pretzel it is then.’

Chapter 12

HANNAH

Hannah was trying out another ‘foolproof’ recipe and things weren’t going well.

About as well as her supposed fresh start in NYC.

She had an incredible place to live in the most exciting city on earth but wished she could spend more time exploring it, or simply luxuriating in this gorgeous apartment, instead of spending time trying to figure out how she was ever going to prove herself to her new bosses and get away from the client list from hell. And try to sidestep the inevitable whispering amongst her new colleagues.

With regard to her clients, there was the narcissistic up-and-coming teenage singer-songwriter who made Veruca from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seem positively angelic, an equally demanding girl-about-town who, having been cosseted by her adoring parents all her life, had illusions of becoming the next Kardashian, and, despite having never lifted a finger, expected Hannah to deliver her a readymade paparazzi following.

And then there was McKenzie.